Mindmap: Feb 23rd

http://popplet.com/app/#/1571354

Amy’s LEGO Minimalism

Last week’s adventure in online Lego building was (1) intimidating, (2) enjoyable, (3) illuminating, and (4) somewhat humiliating given my apparent limitations when it comes to “story-fying” my Lego constructions. (And yes, I did just make up a word.)

So that became the focus of this week’s Mindmap — admittedly one of my more minimalist Popplets. However, given the activity-based nature of our class last week, and the limited discussion of the CHAT article as an entire piece (which could easily have taken several more hours, given its richness and complexity), it seems appropriate.

The Lego build activity was illuminating because — just like this week’s Rubric activity — it was a way to visualize the applied theory evident in the CHAT article segment on “Take 2”. Using the LEGO build as well as the Rubric creation brought to the surface ways to visualize — not only the theories and the networks — but how to critically activate or test these applications by seeing them in new ways. The term “critical pedagogy” showed up in this week’s readings (Johnson-Eilola),  “conveniently” juxtaposed to our recent visualization activities.  So it is only natural to think of our LEGO creations (or Prezis or sketches or Word Art masterpieces) as well as the creation of a more traditional academic visualizing tool (a rubric) as employing critical pedagogy in this way. How apropos that the CHAT’s structural emphasis on hypertext reading / writing as a means of resistance could be framed by our assessment of its theorization and clarity by using both a ‘non-traditional’ means like LEGO building to demonstrate our understanding of said theory, as well as a ‘traditional’ assessment model (rubric building). I must say, having to illustrate my understanding of a theory using a Lego build is a first – but it was entirely and deeply meaningful.